The Safety and Security of Crowds Attending Public Events

"[We offer our] deepest condolences to the victims of the Lapu Lapu Day Festival, their families and the entire Filipino community during this incredibly challenging time."

"Vancouver Coastal Health can confirm the alleged driver of the vehicle was under the care of a mental health team and on extended leave in accordance with the Mental Health Act."

"Extended leave is intended to help clients maintain their treatment plans while transitioning back to community for ongoing support."

"The care team followed established guidelines for a client on extended leave, and there was no indication this person was not following their treatment plan or presented a public safety risk."

Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, Vancouver, British Columbia 

"[If a] director considers that leave would benefit a patient detained in the designated facility, the director may release the patient on leave from the designated facility providing appropriate support exists in the community to meet the conditions of the leave."

Subject 37, British Columbia Mental Health Act

Police and first responders are pictured at the intersection of Fraser Street and 43rd Avenue after a vehicle struck a street festival crowd on Saturday. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

The day prior to a deliberate car ramming at a Philippine festival put on by a Filipino-Canadian community in Vancouver, accused mass killer Kai-ji Adam Lo showed up at the Richmond B.C. RCMP detachment in an evident state of disturbance, claiming that someone had been tossing things into his SUV. When an officer followed him outside to search the contents in the back of the black Audi, there was absolutely nothing there. This was the vehicle used by its owner a day later when he killed 11 people at the Filipino street festival.

 

As Lo drove off, the Mountie entered a report into the police computer system, known as PRIME. Following the 26 April car ramming when the 30-year-old driver plowed his SUV through a crowd of festival-goers at the Lapu Lapu event on Saturday in a psychotic rage of killing and injuring men, women and children, officers ran the suspect's name through the PRIME database that revealed the brief interaction of the day before between the mass murderer and a member of the RCMP detachment.

 

Emergency crews respond to the scene. Vancouver police say the driver is in custody. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

 

Now charged with eight counts of second degree murder, with more charges anticipated, Lo's mental health record may very well be used in a court of law to effectively pardon him from his unspeakable crime of mass murder on the basis of his mental condition blocking his innate and and social-values-driven prohibition against committing violent acts of gross criminality. Of the 32 injury victims of Lo's deliberate ramming of his vehicle into a crowded celebratory event of ethnic heritage and pride, 7 individuals are in critical condition while three others sustained serious injuries.

 

Kaiji Adam Lo, believed to have suffered from delusions and paranoia, had dozens of encounters with police over the years. He is now charged with driving his 2018 Audi SUV through a crowd of people on East 43rd Avenue around 8:00 p.m. Saturday at the Filipino festival. British Columbia Premier David Eby announced the creation of "an independent commission" on best practices to safely hold outdoor public events such as this one. There "will be quick turnaround, so that people can feel safe and comfortable attending and celebrating with their communities this summer", he promised.

"If you're worried that an inquiry would jeopardize this case, don't make the inquiry focused on this [tragic event], make it focused on the lack of effective intervention to prevent serious and deadly incidents in this province in the mental care system."

"Let's set this case aside then, and let's just look at the dozen -- at least -- other cases of injuries, dismemberment and even death that have occurred because of people who were mentally ill and obviously not receiving effective support."

B.C. Conservative public safety critic Elenore Sturko 

Police gather at the scene of the tragedy in Vancouver. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

Behavioural Cultural Norms Incompatible with Western Society

"She wanted him to drive her home from a party she'd attended. Rather than take her home, the offender drove her to an empty parking lot."

"He told her they would have fun. He parked the car and got into the back seat. He moved closer to the victim and forcibly kissed her. He put his hand under her dress and touched her vaginal area over her underwear."

"After he tried again to kiss her and she did not respond, he moved away from her."

"She asked if he would still drive her home and he said no. She got out of the car, and he left her in the parking lot."

Justice Scott Pratt, Ontario courthouse

The Ontario Court of Justice in Windsor.

In an attempt to avoid being deemed 'inadmissible' to Canada for 'serious criminality' by the Immigration and Refugee Board, Uber driver Sevan Halabi of Windsor, Ontario, a permanent resident of Canada, hoped to receive a lighter sentence to avoid deportation. Permanent residents of Canada, if sentenced to over six months in prison, according to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, can be regarded as inadmissible to Canada. What Mr. Halabi, through his lawyer, sought to persuade the presiding judge was to sentence him to six months less a day plus probation. 

"It would require me to cut the sentence nearly in half, solely to assist him in avoiding future penalties. I cannot do that", responded Justice Pratt. A young woman had engaged Mr. Halabi, an Iraqi Uber driver, to drive her home from an event she had attended on October 9, 2022. Rather than take his passenger on the trip she expected, the Uber driver subjected her to a terrifying ordeal of sexual harassment, the threat of rape and violence by implication, and finally abandonment.

 

The woman's attacker was a married man with two sons, age 14 and 10. Presenting himself as a family man, Sevan Halabi's attempt at sympathy was linked to appealing for a sentence of six months less a day to avert any potential immigration consequences. The Crown had argued that Halabi merited a year in jail, and then three years of probation.

 

Born in Iraq, Halabi emigrated from his home country with his family in 2018 to Canada. Halabi is a permanent resident of Canada as a result of the criminal charge impeding an application for citizenship. His wife and children did achieve Canadian citizenship. As for the charges brought against him, Mr. Halabi maintained his innocence during an interview with the producer of a pre-sentence report.

 

Justice Pratt was informed "he regrets what happened, has learned a lesson, and that this will not happen again", the decision in the pre-sentence report conveyed too the Judge. In response, Justice Pratt said: "The offence has hindered her professional life as a teacher and her personal life as well. She is fearful and angry. She didn't know if she would be raped or killed [in Halabi's car that night], and that fear continues to impact her life", responded the Judge.

 

To further appeal for sympathy from the court, Mr. Halabi who had not been held in custody prior to his appearance at the court before the Judge, lived as he would normally with his family and decided to bring his children along for emotional impact. For the sentencing submissions he arranged for his children to be present in court. "On that point, both children were visibly upset and crying during the proceeding", observed Justice Pratt. "Respectfully, I question why they were here in the first place. It was not a case where their father was in custody and so this would have been a rare opportunity to see him in person."

 

"[Halabi] has been out of custody throughout this case and only appeared virtually from Iraq. I cannot find they were brought into the courtroom to engender sympathy from the court, but given the offender's focus on how my sentence could affect his family, that is certainly an inference available to be drawn", the Judge concluded. 

"It is troubling that sexual offences committed by professional drivers are sufficiently common that they have created their own body of case law. But that is what has happened."

"In my view ... a sentence of six months less a day for this conduct would be unfit. It would prioritize the offender's personal circumstances over the need to denounce and deter his conduct and would not be in line with relevant case law."

"It would be an inappropriate and artificial sentence imposed only to avoid legitimate consequences created by Parliament."

Justice Scott Pratt, Ontario Superior Court

Mohamed Al Ballouz, who now goes by the name Levana, is serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years for murdering a woman and two children. Photo by Court exhibit

 

This sexual assault case is but one of many where men from cultures where the place of women is subservient to that of men, religiously inspired and historically adapted into a culture of male privilege and female suffering, gravitate to another culture and system of law. Correctional Service of Canada recently completed an assessment of a convicted killer that decided against Mohamed Al Ballouz of Brossard, Quebec being admitted to a women's prison.

 

This man, convicted of murdering his wife Synthia Bussieres and their two sons -- five-year-old Eliam and two-year-old Zac in 2022, was sentenced to life in prison in December, with no possibility of parole for 25 years. While in custody, the man, also convicted of setting fire to the family condo, transitioned to a woman. With his new name of Levana, he asked that he be preferentially incarcerated at the Joliette Institution for Women, northeast of Montreal. Thankfully for the women at Joliette, the decision was that Al Ballouz remain in a men's prison. 

Synthia Bussières with her sons Éliam Al Ballouz, left, and Zac Al Ballouz. (Obituary)

China's Social Engineering and Companion Pets

"With proper implementation and training, the overall quality of dog ownership will rise."
"It [demerit system] can reduce the risk of my dog being attacked by other dogs that are poorly kept."
"[And the program may result in reducing] the number of stray dogs and unleashed dogs, and eventually the number of people bitten by such dogs."
Miss Hu [last name withheld on request], 35, consultant, Beijing

The city of Jinan has launched a scoring system for dog owners. It may seem authoritarian, but on the other hand, the system will have the effect of inspiring people to be more responsible to their pets' needs and to the needs of the public-at-large in encouraging good pet ownership. Most Western municipalities urge pet owners to register their pets, and issue licenses accordingly. There are laws which must be obeyed as well with respect to public safety and which kick in when pet owners are fined or their dogs confiscated when severe damage occurs, such as serious bites to children or other people by companion dogs.

In Jinan a kind of test project has been put into place, which will in all likelihood be rolled out to other Chinese cities in due time, in lock-step with the giant country's more generalized efforts to 'regularize' its population in a vast social engineering project that is reaching nationwide for the purpose of altering the country's social contract with an end game of full societal 'harmonization'. In the instance of dog ownership, a license is required and it has a dozen points attached to it, embedded in code on the dog's collar.

Infractions of the expected owner responsibility code result in points being deducted, reflecting very specific rules attached to the license. Should dogs be walked without a leash or the dog not be under the control of someone 18 years of age and older, an automatic three demerit points are taken from the license. The rules are quite clear; canines are not permitted close to public water fountains, are banned on public transport and from government buildings, schools, hospitals, parks, public squares, gyms, hotels, restaurants, markets and shopping centres.

Photo taken on July 14, 2018 shows dogs in a pet market in Huai'an, East China's Jiangsu province. [Photo/VCG]

That's a fairly wide-sweeping number of areas which will not permit the presence of dogs. In many other countries' jurisdictions dogs are not permitted on public transport, within hospitals, certain parks, hotels, restaurants, but in others they are in the West. There is much wider latitude in Europe, for example, to the presence of dogs in the public arena. And there appear to be different variations of rules permitting dogs in certain areas in rural communities than there are in largely urban ones elsewhere than in China.

On the other hand, China's population is vast, at 1.4-billion people. Its cities are far more greatly populated than those elsewhere, and the nation has a far greater number of super-populated cities than any other nation on Earth. Administration of such huge metropolises is demanding, and a certain amount of conformity is surely to be expected. There is an estimated 100,000 dogs licensed in this particular municipality, so as a test project the results will be influential in what can be expected elsewhere.

Retired blast search dogs being adopted in Shanghai in September 2018.

TPG/Getty Images

Pet owners who become repeat offenders can anticipate receiving tougher penalties; on the other hand, those owners also have the option of earning back points should they exhibit laudable behaviour such as volunteering to work in kennels. Still, the loss of all 12 points triggers the ultimate fine; confiscation of their dog. And once that happens, should the owners wish to resume responsible pet ownership they must pass an exam before being permitted to reunite with their dog.

The program has been in place in the city located 320 kilometres south of Beijing, for a year. During which time 122 people lost the entirety of their license points, suffering the ultimate fine of losing ownership of their dogs. On the other hand most of them managed to pass the exam and become reunited with their pets. According to state media, 1,430 dog owners altogether were fined. Tellingly, local police claim complaints about dogs have substantially been reduced. And other Chinese cities are now prepared to roll out the same program.

It is a program that has been spurred in part by concerns over the number of dog bites in a nation which has the second-highest number of rabies cases reported in the world, according to the World Health Organization. Millions of Chinese citizens own dogs. Resulting in a pet-care industry boom. Doggy spas and pet funerals represent big business. So in that sense, business-sensitive China has seen the emergence of yet another booming industry, while undertaking an extended social program meant to standardize dog ownership expectations.

This dog-license demerit system is expected to be fully operational throughout China by 2020. In lock-step with a total and complete social-credit system rolled out on a much wider scale encompassing all of the country's social constructs to regularize laws under a wholesale social contract overseen by the state and its agencies, to reduce ethnic, religious and social tensions and diminish criminal acts by a more docile, obedient public submitting to complete state control.

"By rating citizens on a range of behaviours from shopping habits to online speech, the government intends to manufacture a problem-free society", states a Human Rights Watch report from 2017, somewhat less than congratulatory to the Communist Party of China for its social-license enterprise. And good luck on that one....

A woman pushes a stroller with two dogs through the streets of Shanghai in September 2018.

JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images)

Whose Responsibility Avoidable Tragedies?

"Sheppard observed the defendant Saad yelling and screaming and attempting to resuscitate Mac Saini in a perfunctory way."
"Her experience in ... being present and witnessing the death of Mac Saini and seeing his lifeless body was shocking and horrifying to the plaintiff."
B.C.Lawsuit, B.C.Supreme Court, statement of claim

"The death of a child is a tragedy no parent should ever face, and our heartfelt condolences go out to the parents."
British Columbia Ministry of Children and Family Development

"Without commenting on this partiular case, the vast majority of daycares are meeting their regulatory requirements for providing appropriate and safe care to children."
"This is a tragic incident and our heartfelt condolences go out to the parents."
Vancouver Coastal Health

Sixteen-month-old Macallan Wayne Saini, seen here with his family, died on Jan. 18, 2017 at a daycare in East Vancouver. (John Sheppard)

The Sheppard family of Vancouver has filed a lawsuit alleging that their baby, Macallan "Mac" Saini died while in the care of a daycare operated by Yasmine Saad, because he was left alone and the misadventure that took his life was caused by his having choked on an electrical cord. The lawsuit names the operator, Yasmine Saad, the landlords of the building where the daycare is located for failing to supervise daycare operations, and failing to ensure safe and infant-suitable premises prevailed for the daycare.

Vancouver Coastal Health and the Ministry of Children and Family Development also stand accused in the lawsuit of not warning parents, or taking steps to close the daycare in the wake of "multiple complaints" that it was operating without a licence and was an overcrowded facility. The operator, despite being investigated in multiple years after complaints, was never fined, and nor were steps taken to prevent it from continuing its daycare function in the community.

The property owners in their own defence stated they were unaware that their premises hosted a daycare. Shelley Sheppard, mother of 16-month-old Macallan Saini had arrived to pick up her child from the Olive Branch Daycare on the eighth day that he attended and was in the care of Yasmine Saad. On arrival a fire truck was parked in front of the daycare; when she entered the premises she witnessed the operator attempting to resuscitate the child, and realized her son was lifeless.

The suit she and her husband filed states the daycare was "overcrowded" with children, one of whom was seen behind a couch, while other children were seen to be strapped to chairs. Child care providers are permitted up to two children or a sibling group who are not related to them, to be cared for without a licence. Over 1,100 daycare facilities are routinely inspected by Vancouver Coastal Health annually, posting inspection reports on its website.

The statement of claim emphasizes that the child's mother suffers from trauma and health problems linked to permanent disability leading to loss of earnings and is absent life's enjoyment, as a result of the death of her infant. Leaving the impression that the parents did all they possibly could to ensure that their child was in a safe and reliable environment but that through no fault of their own, their child is now lost to them.

Due diligence would have mandated that the reputation of the daycare be the first order of business to ascertain, and a quick look at the website of Vancouver Coastal Health should have raised flags. Since the parents were cognizant of the fact that too many children were being cared for and dubious practices were used in restraining the children to ensure their safety, the question arises, why did they opt to place their child in that situation?

Yet another circumstantial situation arose in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, when a mother left her six-year-old autistic, epileptic, non-verbal daughter seated in the family SUV which the mother left running while she tended to shopping at a strip mall. Someone got into the vehicle and drove off with it, with the child still seated in the back. This took place on Sunday night; it was dark out and there was snow falling, with temperatures at the freezing mark.

RCMP in Saskatchewan have issued an Amber Alert for a six-year-old girl who they say was abducted outside a strip mall in North Battleford. Police say Emma O'Keeffe, shown in an RCMP handout photo, is Caucasian, three-feet-six-inches tall, and weighs 44 pounds. RCMP / THE CANADIAN PRESS

"Words cannot express our emotions right now."
"Emma is safe at home sleeping soundly, peacefully, surrounded by all the love in the world."
Emma O'Keefe's mother

"This was obviously a horrific circumstance, but it was beautiful to see so many people just leave their homes, grab a flashlight and go out and help look [for the missing child]."
Ryan Bater, mayor, North Battleford

"We don't know what happened from when the car was taken until when the car was found."
"Someone took a vehicle that was not theirs with the child in the back seat and then was responsible for the child being left overnight [in the SUV on her own]."
RCMP Cpl. Rob King

It took 14 hours, but eventually the vehicle with the little girl still in the back seat was found, tucked away in bushes. Though the weather was bad, and the city of Battleford lost power after midnight for a period of time, the Amber Alert that was called brought people out in substantial numbers, even from surrounding municipalities, to search for the child.

No one seems to be questioning the intelligent sense of responsibility on the part of the mother, leaving a defenceless child in such a vulnerable situation.